July 2, 2013 AT 11:09 am

Designer 3D Printed Shoes Prowl the Catwalks at Paris Fashion Week

Iris van Herpen, among the first fashion designers to explore creative opportunities with 3D printing, returns to Paris Fashion Week with dazzling 3D printed shoes featured in her new show ‘Wilderness Embodied.” The shoes were designed for the collection by Rem D Koolhaas, Creative Director and Founder of United Nude. Inspired by nature, the shoe design incorporates intricate lattices that wind around the foot, mirroring the growth of tree roots.

The shoes were 3D printed on the Stratasys multi-material Objet Connex and Objet Eden 3D Printers. The fine detail expressed on the shoes, mimicking the natural world, was enabled by the 16-micron print resolution accuracy of the PolyJet 3D printing technology. Stratasys rigid VeroBlack and VeroWhite materials provided the perfect balance of strength, comfort and beauty.

Fourteen pairs of the fashion shoes were 3D printed in less than one week.